Design check-list

Planning your garden for ease and enjoyment doesn't have to mean calling in a landscape designer. Check-list below will show some common planning errors - and solutions!

1. Make sure that you’re shed and green house are easily reached from your path and that both are near the house. A greenhouse with a sliding door and flush threshold makes access easier. Ensure that staging is the correct height for comfortable working. Wheelchair users will need space to turn around outside the door.

2. A prickly hedge is difficult and painful to trim.

3. Tall fruit trees aren't only difficult to reach - they can be dangerous too.

4. Narrow borders, beds and veg plots - easily reached from one or both sides of a path- reduce strain.

5. Weeds love large areas of open soil. If wide boarders are a must, use mulches and ground cover planting to cut down on weeding.

6. Tools of the right weight, size and design can make all your jobs much easier.

7. A raised edge around the pond is convenient to sit on and can make the garden safer. Consider a raised pond or safe low maintenance water feature such as a pebble fountain.

8. Lawns are hard work to mow and edge. Have you got the best tools for the job? What about replacing the lawn with paving and/or ground-cover plants?

9. Many garden accidents involve stakes and canes. Use proprietary or home made cane toppers or growth-through plant supports.

10. Coloured and textured paving cuts out glare and is non-slip even when wet. Changes in paving texture can be used as reference points by visually impaired gardeners.

11. Containers and raised beds can avoid the need to bend - as can lightweight long-handled tools.

Finally, chose planting that is suited to each area of the garden, bearing in mind soil conditions, drainage, light and shelter

Planning before you start

Plan your gardening not only by seasons but before each gardening session, take ten minutes in the warm, preferably drinking a cup of tea and work out carefully what you aim to achieve (be realistic), what tools you require, whether you need a helping hand, how much time and strength you will need to tidy up (best to do it as you go along) and what clothes to wear. Warm yourself up with some gentle flexing exercises before getting going to avoid strains and back problems.

Gather all the tools and take them to where you need them. Avoid unnecessary journeys and fruitless hunts in the tool shed which interrupt the actual gardening and use up your energy for nothing. Attack jobs logically and don't create extra work, for instance, put weeds straight into a bucket and not onto the path where they will have to be brushed up later.

Consider, for instance, what you need to plant a fruit tree: the spade, the fork, the bone meal (plus the scoop for getting it out of the sack and perhaps a knife for cutting open the sack), the tree itself, the hammer, the tree tie, the rake or cultivator for smoothing the soil, the hose or the (full) watering can, the mulch. Then there is the handkerchief for mopping your brow of course, this is hard graft sometimes remember that.

You can minimise these problems by thinking through your gardening tasks beforehand and making sure you have all the tools you need. This at least avoids constant journeys to and from the shed.

If your shed is remote from the scene of most of your gardening - say the vegetable bed - you may think it worthwhile to have a small tool chest nearer to the battlefield. Many types are available - see your local garden centre or DIY store.

You can also reduce the need for carrying if you lay a water main in your garden. Some manufacturers have ingenious solutions to the problem of getting your tools around.

Divide your flower and vegetable beds into patches that you know you can weed completely in one gardening session. Then you will leave each session with a sense of achievement and will know which bit needs doing next.

Don't fight yourself. If illness or ageing means you really cannot manage cutting your hedge by hand, be honest with yourself and either hire or buy a power tool that may solve the problem, ask (politely) a willing neighbour or, as a very last resort, opt to replace your hedge with fencing.

Once you have achieved what you set out to do, don't move onto something else without having planned it as carefully.

Soil conditions

Choose plants which grow happily in the soil conditions you have, rather than spending time and money altering the conditions. For instance, if you have a very hot dry patch, plant it with Mediterranean plants which thrive in such areas rather than worry about watering it each summer.

In wet areas create a pond or bog garden. In dry areas, choose plants that can tolerate drought - such plants often have grey or silver foliage.

Plants

In considering what to plant in a new garden, you might need to consider the length of time it will take for particular plant to mature and create some sort of structure to the garden. A compromise may be required between plants which grow too rapidly and require regular maintenance to keep them in check and those that grow rather slowly and take time to create a feature in the garden.

Gradually remove any unsuitable plants, which could perhaps be exchanged with a friend for a more suitable specimen. Prevention is better than cure. Remove dead and diseased plants, which can be a source of infection and can attract such things as slugs, which may take longer to eradicate.

Choose good quality, disease-free plant material. Plant smaller or more compact species which are easier to handle and may also be cheaper to purchase. Given a weed-free soil, they will establish themselves more quickly than larger plants and will require less watering.

Use your garden seats or ornaments to draw attention to particular areas of your garden, rather than buying expensive specimen shrubs, if you feel you do not have green fingers. Make sure the ornaments are frost-resistant if you intend to leave them out all year round.

Labour

Consider how much time you want to spend in the garden. Although it may be an enjoyable occupation, you may want to divide your time between gardening and other things.

Assess the frequency with which you use your garden - is it on a regular or irregular basis? Is it your quiet hideaway or do you through lots of party’s and BBQ’s? Do you have any help from friends, family or neighbours? Work out what tasks you enjoy doing and those features which you would particularly like to retain, plus roughly the amount of time it takes to do them. If these things can be done in your timescale, it is then a case of looking at how to adapt any remaining features. If you find that items you enjoy are not within your timescale, look first at how you can make more time for them. By making time, pleasant tasks will not become chores - and once they have been adapted, they will in turn make time for other jobs.

If you particularly enjoy a high maintenance task, you could look at modifying other elements within your garden to free more time for this task. Or, just cut down on the extent to which you carry out the task, for example reduce the size of the rose bed to cut down on the number of roses that you have to prune. To change a high maintenance feature it might, initially, be necessary to undertake more work. However, it may be easier to find people willing to help with a 'one off' task than a regular weekly task such as grass-cutting, which can become rather a bind in the summer months when people have other commitments.

Is gardening is a nightmare at which you labour out of a sense of keeping up appearances, rather than a love of plants? Why not design and build your garden around hard surfaces, like a Japanese courtyard garden, where the plant interest is minimal and you can use a few shrubs which may only take a few minutes maintenance each weekend but still look good. If you want a low maintenance water feature, you do not necessarily have to have permanent or running water. A 'dry stream' of pebbles can create an interesting effect and water can be added if desired - rainwater will give temporary variety before soaking away or evaporating. Or get a solar powered water feature.

Cutting costs

Generally, the most costly items will in the long term, become the most maintenance-free; these are the hard landscape items such as paving and walling. Some ideas for obtaining materials more cheaply are:-

• Find out whether costs for 'bulk buys' are cheaper than for a small amount of the same material. If so, consider sharing the material and cost between yourself and your friends.

• Look out for materials which can be recycled, like bricks and paving slabs. However, although such materials may be cheap or even free, there may be the proviso that you have to collect them yourself. They may also need some work in cleaning before they are ready to use.

• It is not necessary for all structures or surfaces to be in the same material. A patchwork of different but compatible materials can be attractive and less costly than using just one type. However, bear in mind that crazy paving needs to be laid with some care, to prevent an uneven surface which may require future maintenance. Or be a serious hazard.

• If you have to pay for any work, try to obtain at least three written quotes. Also try to speak to someone who has recently used the same service, to see whether the job was carried out satisfactorily and was worth the price charged.

• Consider whether the work could be spread over a period of time. A patio area, for example, does not have to be completely paved at one time. Gaps can be left, filled with suitable plants (herbs perhaps), until more paving can be acquired. However, take care not to create an obstacle course - keep main access routes clear of gaps and plants.

• Share tools and equipment with neighbours and friends. Splitting the cost of hiring a specialist piece of equipment will be cheaper and more convenient if you only need it for a limited time. However, powered machinery can be heavy, difficult to handle and in some instances not particularly well maintained.

Carrying small tools

'Organiser belts' allow you to carry secateurs, trowels, hand forks, twine and numerous other bits and pieces in pockets and strapped to the belt. These are great as long as you are strong enough to stand up under the weight! The temptation is to overload; it then becomes extremely heavy and you have to lug the whole lot around all the time instead of putting the tools down when you are not using them. In practice, you might find that you use the belt for storing your tools in the tool shed.

Most of the other solutions are wheeled transporters of various sizes. Consider though whether your surfaces are suitable. Are the paths hard enough, corners or slopes that will make things tricky, is your grass too long or too wet most of the time for wheeling a heavy trolley about with ease?

Carrying large tools

Equipment for moving large tools tends to be unstable and fairly expensive. There are combined tool storage and transport systems some of which convert into a wheelbarrow. You can reduce the problem by using the multi-ranges of tools, with several snap-on heads, which only require one handle. Then at least you only have to carry one or two handles and the equivalent of many small tools, but things like spades and forks are sometimes inevitable and often heavy.

Hope this guide has been helpful on all the things you need to consider while making your ideal garden.